For the first time in 28 years of JD Power’s car owner survey, there is a consecutive year-over-year decline in satisfaction, with most of the ire directed toward in-car infotainment.
For me, as a car enthusiast, this has been a turning point in my enthusiasm for cars. It has become very easy for me to accept electric vehicles and strive for less car dependency, since the EU mandated driver assistance systems and a bunch of other technology in new vehicles. For American readers: In the US there is an agreement between the NHTSA and car manufacturers to include such technology in all new cars by 2022-09.
I really dislike technology that is made to correct and monitor my behaviour and I am not keen on spending lots of money on a car that is filled with technology I don’t want (accident data recorder, intelligent speed assist, lane keeping assist, etc.). Apart from that, I haven’t seen one vehicle where the driver assistance systems aren’t annoying or even dangerous (e. g. the lane keeping system steering towards a ditch / wall on narrow roads, etc.). And to make matters worse: You can’t permanently turn those systems off, if they don’t work as advertised, as in the EU it is mandatory for such systems to re-activate themselves whenever you start the vehicle and the deactivation has to be a multi-step process (as far as I remember).
Nowadays my transport-related interests are therefore mainly complete streets / 15-minute cities / public transport, cycling, affordable electric cars and classic, non-digital vehicles. I no longer wish to own any expensive modern car(s) and I don’t care much for internal combustion engines anymore. Instead I value cities more that allow me to live car-free and the only vehicles I still want to own are classic ones.
